Don't stop now or you'll draw a crowd!

When Katie and I go to the local grocery store we have a plan that when executed will save us lots of time. The plan is this, before we go into the store we each know the items to grab so we don't have to stop and think about what we need or where it is. Why? Because if we stop a crowd will form. Really. It always starts with one person walking up to see Anna. They smile at us then kneel down and grab her feet to try to get her to laugh and look at them. Then their friend comes up to watch which is no big deal, right? I don't have a problem with two people looking at Anna. But the two people looking at Anna works like a billboard sign to the rest of the store, "Hey everyone come here! The Foreigners let us stop and look at their baby, everyone come and look!" Wham, 10 people are now surrounding us and asking us questions about Anna. Now I do take language classes but the workbook doesn't cover all the vocab needed to explain the answers they want. This means that I also don't know what they are asking either (there is a chance that it's not even in the national language but in the dialect which I only know a few words of).
So what do I do? I give answers to questions I do know whether or not that is what they asked. I have a few phrases that I will announce to the crowd hoping to satisfy their curiosity and appease the masses. "She is a girl." That ones comes first because for some reason the fact that she is always wearing pink, her hair is long and curly, she is holding a doll, and her shirt says 'Daddy's girl' the crowd always ask if she is a boy. I don't think this is a formality, the crowd really doesn't know. The next phrase is "She is 11 months." I think they ask this because they want to know if we are feeding her and that she is the right size. The truth is even though she is tall, Anna is on the thinner side and so we often receive the instruction from the crowd to feed her more. Part of the reason she is not a chunker is we don't feed her the 'protein' options of baby food that are offered here. Why? Sample flavors: Chicken liver and onions, Salmon, bone marrow and carrots, and my favorite chicken feet. Mmmm. Tha packaging is funny, it shows a child sitting on the front and underneath is the picture of the food. So there is this smiling baby and underneath him is a picture of severed chicken feet and vegetables. Nothing makes a baby smile like severed chicken feet. I don't think adding the vegatables helps it seem normal.

So you may be wondering at this point, what about the crowd of people? What do you do next!? After I have used all two of my phrases about Anna we say good bye and just start walking right through the crowd. We have learned it is the only option when you are limited to two answers. Otherwise you stand there a long time saying, "I don't know, I don't know, I can hear you but I cannot understand." And that doesn't really help anybody.